La Tigresa
Red beans and rice. I stir them together in the good wooden bowl that has no cracks and set them down on the floor between my Andre's dirty knees. It is 1975, and he is nearly three now, tres años, my boy. I laugh as I watch his little fingers lift a bean just so, in the way that my Andre eats, and he counts the rice that clings to it. "Uno, dos, mamasita." He always counts to please his mama before he puts it into his mouth. He closes his pale lips around the red bean and it is gone. El Zapato is at the door, his presence beckons me. So I kiss Andre. "Be a good boy for Tia Marisol, niño. Make Mama proud." Andre holds up another bean. "Uno, dos, tres," he counts. His hair is nearly grown into his eyes already. I want to stay and laugh with my boy, but no one makes El Zapato wait. I follow him. I must work today. It is simple, really. El Zapato hands me the carrier for the cocaine. It is a smaller one this time than last, maybe only thirty pounds. Last time, I had to sit for five hours because of flight delays and the carrier weighed almost fifty pounds. That made me nervous because I was afraid bored people would ask me questions. Five hours is a long time to wait for a one hour flight. I moved around a lot, changing seats and stepping into the baño de mujer, remembering the moving video cameras. But it is still simple work, and I can someday pay to take Andre to Florida where I was lucky enough to be born. We will live near the ocean and my job will be sewing again and he will grow up tall and strong with big shoulders and straight teeth, not like his father El Zapato, but some of his other children have straight teeth so I dream this for Andre, and all the prettiest muchachas will cry for him. Do you hear my dream, my Andre? Such plans mamasita has for you, querido. I wrap my manton around my back and drape the end forward over my shoulder, and the fringes fall over the carrier, hiding almost the whole thing. This is a very new carrier and today I will not have to use the strong orange oil. I leave the airport counter with my ticket and passport and I see Sylvia again. She wears a nametag and works in Security with the metal detector. At first it made me nervous, always seeing the same face, and I said so to El Zapato. But nothing new has ever happened, and I am comfortable with her now. I think she is American and she has two grandsons. Of course I have never spoken to her but she keeps a picture at her work station. I would like to speak with her if I didn't have this job. I go through the metal detector like I always do. The man in front of me is swearing loudly because he is being asked to empty his pockets again before Sylvia. She is just doing her job. It will always surprise me how ill-mannered some people are. I seat myself close to the gate. The top of the carrier is hidden under my manton, pressed against my breast, and the bottom rests openly across my lap. I am nervous, and I hum to myself as people walk past. No one looks at me, and I relax. I fold my arms across the carrier and hum louder, rocking. I board the plane. I sit in the back near the excusado. Sometimes people look at me and I have to go in there. I get belly cramps. Today the loud angry man moves into my row and the only seat is next to me. He sits. I am nervous already but then he gives the carrier a sideways glance and frowns. I relax. He will not disturb me. I shift the carrier carefully so the weight does not press too hard in one spot. I close my eyes and pretend to sleep. Sometimes I really do sleep. The first time I did this, it amazed me because I didn't think I could ever sleep, feeling this weight in my lap. But I must be strong and fearless, la tigresa, for Andre, and I can when I think of Andre being a man in Los Estados Unitos. I will sew him a red shirt, I think. And white pants with a string in the front to close them. And I will buy him a thick gold chain for his neck with a crucifix set with red rubies. He will play the guitar and the tourists will be enchanted by him. He will sing for them every night at the hotel and beach parties. They will cheer and clap, they will love my Andre, and they will fill is pockets with money and more money. I can see how white his teeth will flash in the torchlight... I did it again, falling asleep. We land with a bump. We always do, but this was a bigger bump than usual. I lurch forward in my seat. So does the man next to me. He swears loudly, clutching after his briefcase. Why did he not put it under the seat or in the overhead? I cannot believe how some people have no regard for rules. My manton slipped from the top of the carrier, and I quickly covered it up again. I have never looked at a carrier. El Zapato does not care if we look, but I know that if I did, I would have to quit my job, and no one quits El Zapato. Sandraliz tried to quit and we found her bones drying on a spike in the arroyo two weeks later, dos semanas. El Zapato took her hija. I wonder if that was my second trip. Andre is my heart, mi corazon, Madre de Dios, gracias, he is so big now! But not big enough. No, I cannot look. I show my passport again and I am outside. I love Florida and how I wish it was Andre's weight that made my arms ache now. But then, my arms never ache when I hold him! I would set him down and take his hand and we would walk out towards the beach and never look back. But for now, I must deliver the carrier and get back home to him. A man I know as TJ is waiting in his brown car. I get into the front seat and I smell that he is drunk today. He takes me to a new place again, a big warehouse. This is something that happens every time, new places, always I am so nervous. I just want to be done in a hurry now and I do not want anything too new happening. I bring in the carrier and follow TJ. He is a big brown man from New Orleans with a sharp gold tooth and his eyes are always covered with black sunglasses. I looked at him once, but I do not look at him now. He opens a big crate. It is not really a crate. It is a hidden entrance to a room. This was new the first time, but I now expect hidden rooms. It is dark and there is a dim light bulb over the table. One end of the table has tubes and glass vials and a scale. There are men around the table. I drop my eyes or they might get the idea to want me. I mostly have been lucky that way so far. Poor Lucita, she is never lucky, y ella esta gorda. I put the carrier on the empty part of the table and turn into the shadows in the way I always do. But today TJ laughs. Today he decides to pay attention to the way I always turn my back. His breath fills my nose. Oh yes, he is drunk. He grabs me and spins me around. This is new. This is new. My heart pounds red in my eyes as he grabs my neck and points my head towards the table. "Whazza matter, doancha wanna see it?" he says. His fingernails pinch into my neck and I put my eyes where he wants me to, but I fill my heart with Andre, Andre, Andre!! I think how he says, "uno, dos, mamasita..." The thin man pulls the wrap away from the carrier. It unrolls and falls face down on the table. The thin man flips it over and I see its pale arms and legs thrown out, stiff-- Madre de Dios, it is like the ruby crucifix I will hang on the neck of my hijo! I will not think now. I will not feel. I will just let this time pass as it must and I will do nothing to make it longer. The thin man slits up the big black stitches in the naked belly and pulls out four full plastic parcels which he lays on a newspaper to sop up the wet. The younger man stabs a parcel with a slim silver blade and tests the powder in a glass tube, and nods. TJ releases me suddenly, and all the men step up and snort some powder up their noses. Then the thin man pushes two wrapped bags of money into the belly and stitches it closed with a big carpet needle. TJ pushes me. "Wrap it up and let's get going, you've got a plane to catch." The cocaine has cleared his head and he is bored now. I did well to stand still. This time did pass as it must, and I can go. I reach for the carrier's wrap, but I am careless because I am cheering myself that the danger is over, and so I forget about the other danger and I make a mistake. I see the carrier's face. It is so like my Andre. Probably El Zapato was this one's father, too. It is smaller, like once my Andre was. It has long dark hair. Its eyes are closed, and it is pouting. There is a big spreading black bruise on its throat. And it has no name. It is a carrier. My hands spread the wrap on the table and I lift the carrier onto it. I say rosaries to Our Lady with these hands. I wonder how my hands can do this. They lift it so calmly. They feel the cold of it and still they do not shake. How can these hands do this? But then la tigresa growls in my heart and I also remember that I pulled my boy from my womb with these hands. I feel her yellow eyes burning behind mine. La tigresa feels no sorrow for her kill, she thinks only of her little ones. I smell the blood on her claws and in the palms of Jesus, the rubies on the crucifix. To protect their young, they kill, she the hoofed beast, He, Himself. My hands move smoothly. I know how my hands can do this. It is simple, really. My son has a name. My Andre will never be on this table. This boy's mother, she was not so smart. Her boy was not so lucky as my Andre, who has a smart mamasita. Jesus made la tigresa who stands guard over Andre and Andre will eat fat red beans and count his white rice and she will take him to Los Estados Unitos because it is el hijo de la hermana estupida that is dead. So I wrap the niño muerto carefully, tucking the ends around his sleeping face. I take him in my arms and throw my manton back up over my shoulder, hiding his face again. He weighs much less. I follow TJ back into the sunlight and into the car and I go into the airport and get onto the plane to go home to my Andre. I hope Marisol remembered to bathe him. Those knees were disgraceful. Category:Reality Category:Weird